A Study in Transience
by gnails
Summary: "Michael was Michael, a perpetual presence in Division, tall, demanding, strict, and constantly around." A non-linear perspective of a character, his past baggage, and the incidents that shape him.


_don't own, don't sue. un-beta'd (again).

* * *

_

A Study in Transience

_(Or: Twenty Moments Defined in No Particular Order)_

i.

Contrary to popular belief, Michael wasn't actually born into Division. It was just that-it seemed like he was a black ops hellspawn, having sprouted out fully grown from Percy's scheming mind like Athena from Zeus. Michael was Michael, a perpetual presence in Division, tall, demanding, strict, and constantly around.

The recruits gossip about his weird proclivity for _always being there_, fueling the mythos.

"It's like he doesn't sleep," Jaden whispers after Michael passes through the cafeteria. "He probably lives here like the rest of us."

Alex rolls her eyes, never looking up from her meal on a tin tray. "I doubt it."

ii.

Michael once had a loft about twenty minutes away from Division headquarters. When Nikita left, Michael began working round the clock and never went home. It was practical to sell it.

So, the next time that Nikita feels lonely, harassed by her grief and thinking foolishly that seeing Michael would fuel her anger, she picks the lock to his front door. When she enters, the space is bare, empty except for a picture frame cracked at the edges.

The man in the image, a youthful Michael, brightly grinning with an older woman who shares his eyes, makes something within her chest painfully constrict.

Against her better judgment, she steals the picture. She keeps it her in her jacket pocket, close to her heart and doesn't try contacting him again.

iii.

When Jamie was a green kid over his head, the CIA promises him exciting times and exotic locales. Being the kid he was, he lunges at the opportunity and doesn't disappoint.

After years aimlessly receiving an education and never being able to find a purpose, it's finally at the agency that he feels like he's making a difference in the world. He becomes their rising star with the greatest potential, takes down the bad guys, makes his country proud, and earns a living off of it.

He finds it hilarious that his family thinks he works for the Library of Congress. He hates books. He loves working for the CIA, but it doesn't hamper him that he's stuck with such a bookish cover.

He stays with the agency. Nothing bad ever really happens, and all of his co-workers think he's blessed with a guardian angel. He laughs it off. It's because he's clever, skilled, handsome to boot, and his superiors think he has the greatest chance of one day becoming Director.

And it's at the agency that he meets someone. His new partner, the second one after his original partner retired, is a young woman, straight out of the Farm. He doesn't like her. Thinks she's too brash, too much of a smart aleck, but she's smart, loyal, and eventually, Jamie falls in love with her.

iv.

The very first time Michael sees her, she's behind Percy's shoulder, dragged in by two guards into Division's training space.

"Michael, this is Nikita," Percy introduces. "Say hello Nikita."

Nikita frowns, exacerbating the cut on her lip, her face bruised and swollen. She looks terrible with her crazy eyes and twitchy fingers.

"Hey handsome. I'm itching for some K. If you could give me some, I could give you a bit of uh," she raises her eyebrows in a sad attempt at salaciousness. "Something for your trouble."

"Charming," Amanda says as she stands poised beside Michael. "I see that I have my work cut out for me."

Michael watches Nikita carefully. Something flashes across her face, and before they know it, she's elbowed one guard, kneed the other, and is sprinting towards the exit.

Of course, she doesn't get far before another set of guards, appearing out of nowhere, grab Nikita. She screams and kicks her legs up in the air, trying to wiggle free. They carry her back to Percy and forcefully keep her in place.

"She's quite the character," Percy comments, amused.

Nikita glares at them.

Michael doesn't respond but turns to watch Nikita, his arms crossed and face stern. He had noticed the defiance in her eyes, lurking behind the ruse she gave them, and he knows that she could be a problem.

"What are you staring at?" she spits at Michael.

He tilts his head and doesn't say anything.

Increasingly agitated, Nikita fidgets under Michael's gaze. "What?" she angrily asks.

He offers his hand. "Hello Nikita. I'm Michael."

Flabbergasted, Nikita is thrown off-kilter. "I..." she stutters. "I, uhm, hi."

She throws out her hand, the only part not pinned to the guards' sides, and grasps Michael's hand for a firm shake.

v.

_Sensei, heads up. New target._

_Shoot me the name._

_James Wickshaw. There's no picture though. Do you know who he is?_

_No, but that's okay. I'll find out._

vi.

Michael is in the middle of dinner when he gets the call from Percy. Blood rushes through his ears as Percy says the words Michael never wanted to hear.

"Nikita's escaped."

When he's at headquarters, he hides his pain behind his scowl and tells Percy, yes, they'll one day get her. He goes home later that night and trashes his loft and sits in the middle of his personal heap of destruction, staring at the golden ring he dug up from the depths of his drawers.

As he plays with the ring, slowly rolling it around on the floor, he finds it ironic that Nikita left him too.

vii.

Nikita was Michael's first recruit under his wing, and she's his best. Two years at Division has made her so much more than she originally was, and Michael, in his small way, is proud of her. Despite the hiccups in her first missions, Nikita fills her role with the most natural ease.

He ignores the idea that he's being overly sentimental when he takes her out to drinks after successfully extracting a stolen briefcase filled with US war plans. They've been allowed these small privileges because of their startling efficacy as a team. Michael concludes that they've earned it.

Although he won't admit it, Michael also likes the company.

He also won't admit that when Nikita laughs and jokes and pokes fun of Michael, he feels something other than the never ending guilt bearing down on his chest, and that particular something, he hasn't felt in a very long time.

viii.

Jamie didn't know his luck had an expiration date. He's pissed off enough people to acknowledge that he has a few enemies. He thinks that they're tucked away on the other side of the earth or in a maximum-security prison cell.

But when he comes home to his fiancée dead, a pool of blood seeping through the carpets of their home, a neat hole in the middle of her forehead and her gun limply in her hand, it's then that he knows.

It's then that he is consumed by a sorrow so strong, so chaotic that his professional life is eventually ripped apart at the seams. He lies through his teeth when he tells them he's already gone through therapy, he just needs to get back into the field. It'll make him feel better. He tells them to do their jobs and find out who murdered his fiancée.

They don't though, and it's up to Jamie to track down the leads and suspects, slowly torture each one until he hears a unanimous name from their lips, a terrorist group he was so close to finding. His fiancée was a warning.

But Jamie doesn't care. He is determined to destroy them and scatter their remains everywhere as a sign that he can ruin them all.

Then he gets an encrypted note. _We warned you. _

It is then that his mother is killed in a suspicious car crash, his sister in an armed burglary.

After that, another note. _Your fault_.

Jamie cracks.

At work, he nearly gets someone killed, his mind too tumultuous to even pay attention anymore, too guilty, too mad, too devoured by the grief gnawing away at his heart. It's the last straw. They tell him to leave and get his shit together before coming back. He doesn't.

Instead, Jamie hits rock bottom, hard, and discovers his poison of choice. Prescription medicine isn't very difficult to get a hold of with the sort of contacts he has. One pill becomes two becomes three becomes four with a swig of brandy.

He knows he's digging his own grave, but he doesn't give a damn.

ix.

Michael waits at the park for Nikita to show up to their usual meeting. She comes, dressed in dark jeans and pea coat with glasses perched on her nose and looking harried with a pinched expression.

"I'm in love with Daniel" are the first words out her mouth.

Michael's mind goes blank. He can't respond, because he can't believe it.

"You've known him for only three months Nikita," he carefully explains, his voice a low buzz.

Nikita heaves in a deep breath, a habit he recognizes. He had taught her that as a calming technique whenever she wanted to skitter away in fear. He goes rigid.

"You don't understand, it—we, I mean…it just _happened_ Michael."

Michael clenches his jaw, feeling a vice was slowly closing around his chest.

"These things don't just happen," he says, biting out each word. "Nikita you cannot."

"Why Michael?" she defiantly challenges him. "Why can't I, for once, be human and have these things happen? I am not some machine—"

"Nikita," he harshly interrupts. "If you go through with what I think you're implying, I can't protect you when Division gets wind of this. Any chance they think you're going rogue—"

"Don't worry," she says, quietly furious. "I won't leave Division."

She gets up and leaves with a forcefulness to her steps and an unspoken _I won't leave you_ _no matter how much I want to._

x.

Sooner or later, Jamie overdoses, and the next time he wakes up, he's chained to a metal chair in a dark room with a splitting headache. His hands are cuffed to the table in front of him, and he can make out his reflection in the blackened window across from him.

A man looms over Jamie like an omen with a critical expression. Jamie tenses. This was it, the group got to him, and he'll be stuck in Hell while he's remembered on the mortal plane as a failure.

"Who the hell are you?" Jamie hoarsely asks.

"My name is Percy, Agent Wickshaw."

The name rings a bell in Jamie's mind. It was the sort of name that Jamie only got glimpses of in top secret reports and clandestine meetings. The man exudes black ops with his expensive suit and the glint in his eye.

"I've heard about you. You were quite the agent. I'm sorry for losses."

Jamie doesn't respond, but presses his lips into a firm line.

Percy leans over the table to watch him. "You're probably wondering why you're here. Well, finding you half-dead was quite an ordeal. Your stomach was chock-full of medication."

He tosses an orange bottle. It rattles across the table until it stops in front of Jamie's hands. The bottle is filled to the brim with pristine blue pills, haunting Jamie, begging him to taste.

Jamie slowly unfurls his fingers as the temptation grows stronger. He pops the lid off and pours all the pills out, the urge to not _feel_ the pain and guilt overwhelming him, to be drugged out of his mind, and not caring if it'll be the last time.

"But I wouldn't do that if I were you," Percy tsks. "You have a lot of talent, and I have an organization that is need of that. Of course that entails cutting off all ties."

Jamie looks up, dark rings under his eyes and a pile of pills innocently before him.

"But there's not a lot tying you down is there?" Percy peers at him and finally offers him a deal. "You work for me Agent Wickshaw, and I will do the one thing that the CIA was unable to. I can give you back your life as well as some other things."

Jamie clenches his hands and dares not to hope.

"You work for me and I'll help you find the people who killed your family."

"What'll you do with them?" Jamie rasps.

Percy shrugs. "Give them to you to deal with."

And at that, Jamie agrees.

He starts training with Percy's organization and gets cleaned up. They give him a new sense of profound intentionality, an exact precision in the way to deal with people, both dead and alive. He looks back at his days in the CIA and sees nothing but wasted time.

It is here, under Percy's guidance, that Jamie re-discovers what it means to serve his country, what it means to save people, and what it means to exact revenge.

At the last step, Jamie kills himself and doesn't attend his own funeral. He doesn't want to see if his absent father decided to show his face or if any of his old frat buddies still remembered him. Doesn't want to see the co-workers who never gave their condolences when his fiancée died. In the end, Jamie burns all remnants of his previous life, and Percy forges him a new one.

The CIA declares Agent James Wickshaw dead.

xi.

_Hey Sensei, the target, I know who he is._

_Who is it?_

_…_

_Are you there?_

_It's Michael._

xii.

Michael used to spar with Nikita on a daily basis. It kept him on his toes and feeling less like he's too old for all these young faces around him. About six months in, Nikita gives him the slip and trips Michael during one of their sessions. It knocks all the air out of his lungs, but Michael is actually a bit pleased.

"Good job Nikita," he says when she hooks a hand to help him up.

"Yeah, well, we're always fighting," she says too nonchalantly. She still doesn't quite trust Michael, but she's warming up. The two of them are surprisingly more compatible then they originally thought, per Percy's comments and approval.

Nikita stares at him for a long moment, contemplating something. "Don't you have a family?" she finally asks him.

Michael flinches, but Nikita doesn't notice. "Why do you ask that?"

"The other recruits say that you're Percy's hellspawn. Like you budded off of him or something."

Michael laughs. He wasn't expecting that. Nikita appears pleased with herself. "I don't live at Division, if that's what you're asking."

"Oh. Okay. Another round?"

Michael declines, citing Percy as a reason. Nikita playfully teases him, telling him he's losing his edge. In retaliation, Michael takes her on. He effortlessly blocks her blows and throws her over his shoulder.

"I give up," she says breathily, laughing. Amused, Michael shakes his head. His smile falters when he sees Percy eying them like a hawk. Michael straightens out his back. Nikita, confused, glances, following Michael's line of vision. She frowns and immediately, the air between them becomes thick with tension. Michael clears his throat.

When Michael offers Nikita a hand, she ignores him and silently sulks off to the punching bags. Michael ignores the unusual feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he quickly strides up the ramp to Operations.

"How is she doing?" Percy asks Michael when he enters.

"She's adjusting."

"Good." Percy glances at Michael with strict consternation. "You shouldn't get too attached Michael."

"I know sir."

"Good." He turns back to looking over the bodies of young men and women with their regimented focus, like a lord examining his cattle.

After a moment, Michael asks, "Sir, how much longer?"

"You need to wait Michael," Percy admonishes. "They're hard to find, so for now, focus on the recruits."

Michael takes Percy's answer for what it is and doesn't question it. It's not really his place to question things, especially this early in the game. Instead, he remembers where he comes from-born from ashes and thankfully alive-and settles into his new role, quietly watching Nikita.

xiii.

Michael angrily points at Nikita. "You did this to yourself."

"Michael, please," Nikita begs. That look of desperation, of love and terror combined together, Michael knows it too well.

"I already let you…" Michael grits his teeth and scrubs his face. "If you do this, you're off the assignment."

"Michael, for once stop being Percy's lapdog, and listen to-"

"You are not allowed to get _married_ to him Nikita. That could compromise everything!"

"Then I'm not coming back," she snaps. "I'm done."

The words sting Michael, taking all of the time and effort and hope he had put into Nikita and smashing it in to oblivion. Michael violently grabs Nikita's wrist, his hand like a bruising vice.

"Let go of me," she says venomously.

Nikita yanks away her arm and turns on her heel. She walks away from him, her shoulders rigid and the smooth glide of her steps unfaltering.

Michael flips open his phone and dials Percy, wallowing in the betrayal, hurt, angry, seething deeply inside.

"We have a problem."

Michael takes that feeling of loathing (loathing Nikita for leaving, loathing himself for doing this) with him like a brand, justifying his return to Nikita and Daniel's homey apartment, ripping Nikita away from the artificial life she's built up. As he sits in the passenger seat, he hears her muffled screams in the back when they drive back to headquarters, and amidst the chaos of his emotions, more than anything, he feels alone.

xiv.

Michael hands her a new poster, a giant Jamaican flag with Bob Marley's face in a contemplative expression. Nikita literally jumps off her bed when he shows it to her, a look of surprise on her face.

"I'd prefer the Bahamas," he quips while she lifts the poster against a wall, gauging what it'll look like with the new addition.

Nikita cracks a smile. "Was that a joke? That was lame."

Michael flashes her a rare grin. Her mouth widens, impossibly large before turning back to the poster. She scrambles around, searching for something. Michael responds in kind by automatically outstretching his hand, offering her a box of tacks.

"What'd I do to deserve this?" she asks while leaping atop her desk, scattering a few of her belongings.

"A job well done."

Her smile instantly falls. "You mean the hit."

"Nikita, you did the right thing."

Nikita frowns, flattening out her poster with an even slide of her hand. "Right. Hand me a tack will you?"

He gives her one and then stands back to watch her nimbly hang the poster up. He rubs his thumb against the edge of his lower lip in impassive silence.

Once finished, she deftly hops off and faces Michael with an odd look, hesitant and uncertain.

"Thanks," she finally says, her lips quirking up. "I uh, didn't know you knew." She gestures at Bob Marley.

"You were humming No Woman, No Cry in the car ride back."

She lets out a chortle. "Right, I was. You like Reggae?"

Michael shrugs. "Not really. I'll see you in an hour."

He pats her shoulder when he passes by her, and he allows his hand to linger a second too long.

xv.

Michael wakes up in an uncomfortably ergonomic cot, his eyes sweeping over the dilapidated ceiling of the room. Hot pain slices through his abdomen when he shifts, and the bandages chafe the bullet hole in the side of his stomach. He feels old when he gingerly moves in an achingly sluggish manner, swinging his legs on the side of the cot and sitting up.

He's not entirely surprised to see Nikita standing over him.

"I know who you are."

"Hi to you too," he sardonically replies. He groans when the wound twinges. A rueful expression flashes across her face.

She tosses him a manila folder. "What's this?" he asks.

Nikita moves to sit at her desk. "Read it."

So he does. He skims through pages of official documentation pleasantly explaining under the table deals and assassination payments. Michael catches a government official's name and his corporate backers, a company with connections to the black market. His finger lines the word _Division_ and traces it to the name of a terrorist group that has never left the vanguard of his mind. He flips forward a few pages and comes across pictures of his sister, his mother, and his fiancée, their bodies sprawled at each murder site.

Then he flips to his old CIA personnel file. After that, a print out of his current Division profile.

A logical part of his mind concludes with, of course, Percy didn't have a personal vendetta. He was simply protecting a US senator who got caught with his hand too deep in terrorist funding. It makes sense.

Nikita doesn't say anything, doesn't move when Michael calmly shuts the file, his face expressionless.

Michael rises and paces a few steps, the thick folder in his hands.

He stops, he stands, and for a small while, does nothing.

Abruptly, he screams and chucks the folder into the air where it comes apart, papers fluttering everywhere, raining down on him as he crumples to the ground and sobs.

"_God, why_?"

Nikita leaves her chair and kneels down. Michael, pliant under her hands, curves into her body, slotting his arms around her. He latches onto Nikita, his fingers spread across her back and his head pressed into her shoulder.

She gingerly smoothes down his hair, holding him as his breathing eventually evens out. Then, he slowly, deliberately disengages himself.

Nikita touches her forehead to his. "You're not alone."

Michael wetly inhales. He drops his eyes to the ground.

"We can take down Division together," she murmurs, tightly gripping Michael's shoulders. "Michael, please."

For a brief moment, Michael wonders how his life has led up to now, and how Nikita, dangerous like a razor's edge, makes him teeter on the precipice. He'll lose his balance, and he'll fall so far, Percy will easily get his head on a platter and serve it for dinner.

Then Nikita kisses him. It's a lot like coming home.

xvi.

When Jamie proposes to her, she doesn't say anything at first but instead stares, gaping. It dampens Jamie's self-esteem, and he begins doubting himself if this was even a good idea.

They're standing at the ridge of a cliff, waiting for a helicopter to come in and extract them from Ireland. He averts his eyes, but then she launches herself at him, giddily laughing, kissing him and saying, yes, yes, of course, she'll marry him.

They were to have a spring wedding, outdoors under the willow trees. His sister was going to be the maid of honor, and his mother was going to cry at the ceremony, smudging her mascara. They were going to go to Italy for their honeymoon. They were going to be happy.

xvii.

The three years Michael doesn't hear from Nikita, a certain type of bitterness grows around his heart and wraps it up in thorns, choking off everything except for the permeating guilt already there. He swears that he'll kill the first moment he sees her.

But a little voice in the darkest crevices of his mind mockingly laughs. You won't do that, it tells him. You love her too much to do that.

xviii.

There was once a time, a distinct memory in Michael's mind-before Daniel and before Nikita's gets struck by furious retribution-where he and Nikita are off-assignment. They get an extra day to prep for tomorrow's hit. So they take advantage of the hotel's classy restaurant and Division's payroll.

Nikita sips her glass of wine delicately, just like Amanda taught her how, and Michael hides his smirk behind his napkin. He offers to pay for dinner. She asks why, and he explains to her it's what a gentleman does. She cracks up, because Michael the gentleman is hilarious in her mind. But she allows him to and graciously thanks him.

She places her hand on his. She's warm like the sun filling up a dark room, beautiful and open. There's a mischievous twinkle in her eye, and she make jokes about their neighbors and fellow rich cohorts snootily eating caviar. He laughs and thinks, she could've been the one to fill the gaping void in his heart—that is, if this were a different life.

But for a second, he imagines that it is. So he lets her lean in when they get up to leave, and he lets her softly place her lips on his.

He lets himself fall into her, pressing her closer, his hand on the small of her back. He lets her coil her fingers around his neck and gently kiss him like he's worthy of all of her attention.

And for that one glorious moment, Michael forgets who he is, and he whispers her name like a prayer against their mouths.

xix.

Jamie leaves flowers at their graves. He lights a match, and his whole life goes up in flames.

xx.

Michael watches Nikita re-apply his bandages. He strokes her bare shoulder, feeling the way her muscles move under his fingers.

"It might take years," he says.

Nikita clips the bandage and briefly glances up. "We'll do it. We have to."

She puts away her first-aid kit before crawling across the cot to join Michael. She twists their hands together, locking their fingers. "If not for us, then for the people we've lost."

"Yeah," Michael responds, so exhausted and wanting nothing more than to stop and to rest, to finally let go of the burden that has pressed down on his shoulders for the past seven years. He's unable to though, much like Nikita is unable to. So what if they take down Division, what will happen to them then? They can't outrun their ghosts, and they can't outrun who they are.

But then he looks down at Nikita, with her hair splayed out on his chest, watching it rise up and down.

For now, he'll let himself hope.

* * *

_a/n: I actually have a lot of qualms in regards to Nikita-including it's kinda weird pacing and really uncomfortable acting. But that aside, the premise is a very rich. This story originally was linear, but then I blew it to smithereens and pieced it together from there. Hope you enjoyed._


End file.
